


Flesh to mix with Flesh, or Soul with Soul

by Riathel



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Biblical Reinterpretation, Eldritch, Established Relationship, Fluff, Light Bondage, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Shameless Smut, Tentacle Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 16:59:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19445743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riathel/pseuds/Riathel
Summary: Aziraphale wants holy communion. He wants eucharistic adoration. He wants the whole damn host. Even the terrible church wine will do, at this point.Wherein:1. Loving and being in love are two very distinct states of being.2. The occult and the ethereal are more like eldritch entities than Renaissance paintings.3. There are tentacles.





	Flesh to mix with Flesh, or Soul with Soul

The thing you have to understand about their bodies is that — well, they’re ineffable. Occult. _Ethereal_. Angels and demons make the effort to appear human, to engage in performative acts of gender and present as flesh-bound beings.

Most of the time. Except when they don't.

And then they really, _really_ don't.

There have emerged cracks of that divinity in the Bible, from men and women labelled lunatics. Stories about four headed Cherubims, their predatory maws gristly with fibrous sinews; the Archangels with six brilliant wings who have to console humanity _be not afraid_ ; the spinning fiery wheels of endless, staring eyes called Thrones; the daemonic third of the angelic host, further borne into an earthly realm and composed of condensed vapours poured into vegetable, animal and mineral; even good old scaly, horny Mr. Scratch himself.

They're all true.

They're also woefully inadequate descriptions.

Humanity is unique, in that so much of one’s soul, one’s emergent property, one’s _raison d'être_ , is captured deep within a fleshy, pink tumour that ticks over with individual thoughts and feelings and fears and wants and joys and needs. 

Humans wonder if they have souls. If the consciousness that plays itself out inside their heads is a divine spark. Entire religions, theologies, cults, philosophies and tea parties have been founded to answer the fundamental question of what it means to exist.

Neither the ethereal nor the occult were afforded such privacy. They have the sanctity of being known.

More succinctly:

Angels and demons _are_ souls.

* * *

Aziraphale is not his first name. His name is a string of chirps, sighs, solitary suggestions of quiet music and the gentle rustling of turning pages. It’s a sound that would render mortal throats mute.

Anthony, Crowley, Crawly had a name like that once. But now his name is a burning sigil: a purring engine, a crack of a hammer against broken glass, the distant, ancient scream of a lost child buried somewhere deep and dark.

The first time they get too heated in kissing, they accidentally slip out of their skins for half a second, murmuring those names with wondrous surprise — and St. James's Park bursts into flames as hailstones pelt it from above.

It takes hours of clean-up to set that right.

They're a bit more restrained after that. But they are still quite flush with giddy joy that feels more appropriate to beings a thousandth of their collective age.

Joy has its trials, like their first abortive attempt at a first time. The mood is taken into custody after Crowley tries, with profound gravitas, to explain what the prostate is — it's condemned without trial when Aziraphale responds with a bout of helpless laughter. As if angels are nubile maidens who hath not the touch of man felt.

Aziraphale can’t resist asking if he’s read Milton. This is a mistake, as Crowley spends three hours hanging from the uppermost balcony of the bookstore, dark and scaly and constricted around the poetry section.

He’s a prodigious sulker, very naturally gifted. It takes another week, several apologies, and the blessing of an off-the-rack £8.00 sherry into a divinely botrytized Sauternes to get him back into the bedroom.

Human sex is novel. Fun. A refreshing use of an afternoon. Neither of them are unused to its practice, but there’s something to be said about sex with someone you love. Something about the un-mitigating factor of the un-Apocalypse, too. They try not to overthink the warm fleece feeling of it all. Crowley seems not to, for once, at any rate.

Aziraphale doesn't either. For about half a year, he tries very, very hard to not think about it at all.

But...

Well, Aziraphale loves. He's an angel. It's his scene, to play the chorus to the leading role of humanity, to support and cherish and adore. Purely loving another being is as natural to him as breathing, even if this being just so happens to be his cosmic antithesis.

He also wants.

That is the effect of being on earth for six millennia. He wants soft chemise, the scrape of a spoon across the hard shell of an unbroken crème brulée, the feeling of fingers digging into his hips, the deliciously tight rapture of a well-ordered account book and the heady pleasure of a _very nice_ soufflé.

But indulgences that have previously filled and sustained now seem deficient.

There is something wrong with him, he thinks, and considers telling Crowley, and decides against it in the same breath.

They eat every meal out.

Four meals a day, and it does not fulfil him. Crowley slides him uneaten dessert, always well paired with whatever they're drinking or smoking. Aziraphale eats it, swallows, smiles and pretends it doesn’t just taste like saccharine fluff.

Despite the prostate, which he finds very lovely and quite clever of humanity, the trappings of flesh do not seem quite enough for what he wants to do to Crowley. To run soft kisses down the length of a too-tiny corporation, to press into the acute angles and serpentine spine, to murmur sweet nothings to a half-cognisant partner: none of it quenches the frustrated craving of his innermost being. He wants to venerate, to desecrate, to know and break and mend, and to be known and broken and mended in turn.

Aziraphale wants holy communion. He wants eucharistic adoration. He wants the whole bloody host. Even the terrible church wine will do, at this point.

He wants, simply put, _more_.

He tells himself that it's enough to make Crowley purr with a human throat, to make him bend in unnatural angles. To spill himself, hot and sticky and thick, into every conceivable hole, and to receive it all back in feverish return. 

There are so many surprising things one can do with a human penis and as they tick onto the next, he thinks _this time it will be enough._

But he's become bad at prolonged self-deception.

It must be Crowley's doing. He curls around Aziraphale like a moth to a flame, hissing beautiful words in his ear. But they're not lustful temptations or sweet nothings.

In the soft reverence of confession, Crowley whispers six thousand years of strangled thoughts and hastily extinguished words. They flow out of him like water: pure, and lovely, and nourishing, and Aziraphale _wants more._

To be human in these moments is... intolerable, simply intolerable.

For one, their chest cavities aren't designed to hold this much love — otherwise, he surely wouldn't be fit to bursting with it. His form feels so tight around the edges, so primed to unravel, that every stray graze sets his blood rushing. 

Even the thinly-veiled looks of yearning that Crowley still indulges in — when they dine at the Ritz, the Savoy, at fish and chip shops, at nameless cafés with an all-day breakfast and not much else to recommend them — even those set Aziraphale's inadequate heart on fire.

 _Loving_ and _being in love_ are two very distinct states of being.

He is not prepared for the way the latter aches, fierce and uncomfortable below his skin. It has crept up on him over time, over decades, centuries, longer still, a shadowy, blasphemous seed sprouting until he finds his heart’s shrine is choked in red roses and hungry thorns.

No. He is not prepared at all.

(He almost calls an ambulance once, before thinking that those poor EMTs would have a Hell of a time — excuse the expression — if he dissipated into white sparks or worse before their eyes.)

This should be happy, Aziraphale thinks; _he_ should be happy.

He murmurs Crowley’s name one night, wanting selfishly to unburden himself from this feeling.

Crowley looks up, hair ruffled and halfway to sleep and looking so lovely that Aziraphale instead says, desperately, needing to be known, to be cherished and adored, and fearing it all more than anything else: “I hope you have pleasant dreams.”

Crowley relaxes against him and says, “‘Course. You’re here.”

For a moment, Aziraphale thinks that his chest will shatter and he will come utterly undone.

But it doesn’t.

He doesn't.

Predictably, perhaps, when it does happen, it occurs not so much with a passionate declaration of love, a bang of divinity or the glorious roaring of ten thousand trumpets, but with the inevitable collapse of a slow-moving avalanche.

And some light bondage, of course.

* * *

It happens at about ten thirty-four in the evening on an otherwise unremarkable Tuesday.

Unremarkable, but for the fact that he has Crowley tied up in his Mayfair flat bedroom.

BDSM is Crowley's suggestion, of course, half of a joke as they slide into drinking whiskey after three bottles of merlot.

(It's always a dangerous combination — the last time they had indulged in this particular blend, they ended up with a working copy of their Agreement.)

After Aziraphale's radiant enthusiasm, Crowley shys immediately to the less extreme proposal of a couple of ropes and a blindfold. Aziraphale immediately tries to dispel drunk thoughts about shibari and notes, with his usual caution, that they should discuss safe words.

In the morning, he also has a quiet thought that he ought to remove _Philosophy in the Bedroom_ from his own bedside table and replace it with something a bit less threatening.

And here they are, three nights later.

Aziraphale lingers by the edge of the bed, admiring the demon caught in his bondage.

Crowley is nestled in white sheets, back against the headboard. The ropes are silk, tied around two bedposts. Aziraphale had insisted on the newly installed headboard — “velvet and _floral_ , angel, _really_?” — for this express purpose.

Crowley's chest and arms dangle, slightly limp, between the two posts. The sight brings a glimmer of unpleasant memories to the surface, images that tickle at his throat — but then Crowley smiles at him, stretches lithely and wrinkles the blindfold. That dispels the gnawing fingers of a too-perfect memory. Everything is different now. They are so much more than they were.

“You look lovely, my dear,” Aziraphale says, his limited heart hurting already.

“A bit sexier than last time, too,” Crowley drawls, surprising him. “Don't startle, I know you were thinking about it. I can feel your good Catholic guilt all the way over here.”

“Perhaps,” he relents and moves in closer, sliding onto the bed.

“Don't tell me you weren't sore about being tricked. Wickedly mis _led_?” Crowley says in a half-song. He's squirming and grinning and somehow happy about this revenant of a reenactment. It's enough to make Aziraphale's own happiness bloom in empathy as he reaches out to drift one finger down Crowley’s left side.

Their usual bouts end with Aziraphale’s soft hands covered in half-moon ridges, but his hands have had a few days to heal; this time he thinks he can restrain himself to the corporeal without the need for the steadying self-infliction of pain.

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale replies gravely, “But I seem to have caught you again. And,” he adds, relaxing too easily into the lofty rôle, “I won't be swayed by the snake tears and pleas to loosen your bonds this time, my dear.”

Crowley shudders, and his Effort is suddenly a lot more generous. “Crocodile tears,” he still corrects, even though parts of him are turning bright pink and he's beginning to writhe against Aziraphale's gentle, persistent explorations of smooth skin.

Aziraphale hums lightly, edging further into the bed until his legs don't drape over the edge. He toys with an idea and decides: _Carpe Diem_. “How could they be crocodile tears if you're a very splendid, wicked serpent?”

 _Carpe_ something, at least, he amends, leaning forward.

“Your dirty talk is a strange mix of— _ggrk_.”

He never finds out what Crowley was intent on saying, as the aforementioned serpent goes boneless and voiceless at being totally encompassed by Aziraphale's gentle mouth. Aziraphale is hardly in a position to prompt him to continue — he barely restrains Crowley's startled kick a few moments later as his brain abruptly reignites.

“Wowowow,” Crowley babbles, hissing and slippery and a mess of sounds beneath him. He is evidently trying to retain some level of control through vocalising. “You just — unh — just really — really went for it there, okay, oka— _yyy_.”

That whine is the result of a further judicious application of a firm grip. Crowley jerks, holds tight for another few strokes, and then comes undone like a falling tree: gradually sliding down, down and then — the curtain.

It is difficult to resist a wet murmur of, “So soon, dear?”

“Bite me,” says Crowley wearily.

Aziraphale takes the moment to remind him who is leading the proceedings here by giving him a full-mouthed kiss instead. Crowley tastes sharp and sweet and dry, the hint of a Bordeaux Superieur at the back of his throat; his snake tongue flickers into Aziraphale’s mouth just before they break apart.

“Malapert,” Aziraphale chides. Crowley’s humming a fractured part of some tune under his breath, tongue flickering out into the space between them. “I should have gagged you instead.”

The tune is one that plays in the car often these days, probably a Red Hot Bell Pepper or something from that nice, young man Freddie Mercury.

Aziraphale touches his cheek gently; an impossibly long tongue darts across his skin in return. “Now, my dear, would you like to be hit?”

Crowley’s humming veers wildly into a song he recognises — a few lilting notes of _The Masochism Tango_ , half a line of _you can raise welts like nobody else_ before Crowley flushes a bit deeper.

“Ah,” Crowley clears his throat and his mouth twists slightly in a wry, half-apologetic smile, “Not really. Not tonight anyway. Just… keep doing the touching.”

“Of course.” Aziraphale settles further up on the bed. He sinks down next to Crowley, brushing up against his right side.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley says seriously, twisting in his restraints, “Why did I just feel _fabric_? Are you still dressed?”

“Hush,” he replies, pressing two fingers into a surprised, but welcoming mouth. “Stop begging for discipline if you don't want a slap.”

There's a choked moan against his fingers. An inquisitive tongue bathes them feverishly, lathing over the joints, the front, the back, in between.

Aziraphale flirts with ghostly touches of his left hand to the small patch of warm and dry scales near Crowley's abdomen, pressing a little harder at the stomach. Crowley whines, wavering and low, as he is stroked and petted and, occasionally, kissed, trailing down and up and then back again along his chest.

And then Aziraphale's hand trails all the way down even further.

He pauses at the very epicentre of it all. The gentle torture he has been applying with methodical compassion has renewed the interest of the serpent far sooner than any normal human body should allow.

It's always very gratifying to see swift results.

Crowley doesn't need to breathe, and Aziraphale could happily gag him for the rest of the session if it would keep that clever tongue from slipping out. But it is a partnership, theirs, and so he slides his fingers out of the first hole he intends for them to enter. The night is young, after all.

His heart clenches sharply at the sight of a black tongue flicking over red, wet lips.

“Well, my dear?” he prompts. He runs lazy touches around a glittering black stomach scale, tracing the triangle pattern over and over.

“You're polite asss a cat,” Crowley says, hissing and stretching, “Fuck me.”

It’s difficult to refuse.

But Aziraphale refrains anyway, with a smile.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather —” he reaches over to stroke Crowley's side with a chaste, warm hand “— more touching?”

“Torturer,” accuses the demon.

“You suggested it.”

“I suggested BDSM, not cruel and unusual punishment.”

“You’re simply _incorrigible_ , dear,” Aziraphale says.

“You love me,” Crowley replies, breath quick and a light flush kissing his skin, “Now ssshut up about it and fuck me.”

He laughs, reaches down from on high, and then has Crowley in the palm of his hand.

“ _No_ ,” Crowley says, more than halfway to a hiss, “No, fuck me properly.”

“So greedy,” Aziraphale murmurs, giving one gentle stroke anyway before releasing.

The push-and-pull of it has ignited him, otherwise he would linger like this for a while longer. If his hands are trembling while he undoes his trousers, well — Crowley isn’t faring much better in dignity, undulating and restless beside him.

It’s a short moment before he’s inside Crowley, pushing in flesh to flesh and feeling, more than hearing, the heat of a breathy, keening moan against his shoulder. He stills, feeling tight and dizzy with sensation, feeling like he needs to pull back against the eroding tide of desire pooling inside him, eating away at his composure and restraint like acid.

“Keep going,” Crowley chokes. Aziraphale shudders and clenches his fists, digging neat circles into soft flesh and feeling totally overwhelmed, as he starts a spasmodic, halting rhythm, feeling at this early stage, like he might, even now, if this continues, he might actually—

“Hold me,” Crowley groans, “Just —”

—he might, actually, genuinely, and Crowley’s so pliant and noisy with it all, he can’t, he can’t—

“I—” Aziraphale coughs, feeling on fire, “I can’t, dear, I need to—” He needs to keep the steadying pain of being human otherwise—

“ _Please_ ,” Crowley whimpers and Aziraphale caves, wrapping both arms around him.

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale says and sighs. Crowley is flush against him, feeding off his body heat like ambrosia, drinking it all in more deeply and more desperately than any dying man he’s ever known. Perhaps he doesn’t need the pain, perhaps he can just — let himself be here, in this moment, enjoying the tightness and the cool skin against his own—

Crowley hisses his name, or part of it anyway, and jerks against him, murmuring adoring orisions against an angel of—

— _God_ , but he does feel good, the slight coolness a sting against his flesh, the heat and friction between them soaring and soaring, until the tight cord within him begins to fall apart, and feelings that were once too overwhelming fall into place as he reaches the precipice of emotion and Crowley makes that lovely, needy whine right at the back of his throat and he truly, honestly feels like the worry that has been plaguing him for months is being pulled from his soul, like thread on an old jumper, out and out and out, until it’s unravelling and there’s nothing left to fear and he simply feels, God, he feels almost, he can feel himself, he's—

Cold.

* * *

Crowley hisses in pain as the temperature drops abruptly. There is something incredibly fucking cold inside of him, and he snaps the safe word, “Crusade, crusade, crusade, shit, _shit_ ,” before it vanishes.

The room is silent.

Aziraphale, who had been muttering divine little grunts of exertion, is silent.

“Uh, angel?” Crowley calls through gritted teeth, throbbing half with need and half with pain. He can get out of these bindings easily, but the idea of slipping into a reptilian body in this chill fills him with sluggish unease. “Aziraphale?”

A thousand bells go off at the same time, clanging with an awful, shuddering jangle of mismatched peals, the mournful thrum of a funeral toll amidst the sharp jingling of a call to prayer and then they cut off abruptly.

At the first peal, he’s already slipped out of his human skin into scaly, and then back again to press his hands against his still-ringing ears. “Fucking hell,” he grits out.

A single chime rings out, struck by a gentle touch. The sound vibrates and vibrates, contemplative and piercing.

Limit with this bullshit well and truly reached, Crowley rips the blindfold off.

There is a small supernova hovering above and around him.

The room is struggling to accommodate the star. It wavers, sending another glacial spurt of air out, and then it gives up on the pretence of human physics and blooms outwards, stretching long and bright to every strained part of their occupied space. The air freezes around it and the room is covered in a growing coat of frost.

Any other man in the presence of a dying star might say, “oh my,” or, “gosh, look at that, don’t see one of those everyday in the West End,” or, “Jesus fucking Christ,” or even nothing at all, as they will have probably long since turned to ash.

Crowley is not any other man. And it’s not Jesus fucking Christ that he wants to have a word with.

He gives the sinuous, refractive light a grim and displeased look. His most grim and displeased look. It’s the sort of look that speaks narratives and writes its own poetry, but being unsure if the star currently has eyes, he adds, “Aziraphale, what are you doing?”

A sacring ring manages to sing out with enough sweet conviction that he can almost hear the angel say, ‘I’m terribly sorry, my dear.’

Like Aziraphale has forgotten to put milk in his tea. Like he's done the Times crossword and forgotten to miracle away the answers afterwards. Like he isn’t currently sprayed across the room like sun spots from a burnt-out flash-bulb, burning up baryonic mass into helium. 

“‘Sorry’?” Crowley repeats incredulously. He physically bites down on a number of nasty comments. It had been a warm summer’s night outside his flat; now he can hear rain and hail pelting down on the building. No wind, just a cold, endless sleet of precipitation. “You’re _sorry_.”

Aziraphale tolls mournfully again. A slender rainbow tendril breaks away from the rest, digs into his sheets and tries with graceless imprecision to tug them over Crowley. The angel-cum-burning-star shivers suddenly, and the tendril coalesces into a thick, white tail.

Crowley yanks the sheets up himself, summoning a blanket for good measure. He may not be a pile of ashes or a demon ice-block, but his pale skin is darkening blue and feels suddenly brittle without the moisture in the air.

With a soft _vhuump_ and a whine of superheated gas, Aziraphale's supernova burns out, and —

Aziraphale collapses completely.

He's spread out like parchment against the walls of the bedroom, an old papyrus scroll folded against and against itself in a tight bind. Feathers drip from the paper, rippling against the air that is finally growing warm again. The tail on the bed swishes, its blond tufted tip resting in Crowley's lap.

Too many eyes blink and flutter across Aziraphale’s brightness, opening up across the pages and wings. Three especially blue ones bubble open on his tail and peer at Crowley with anxious concern. A mouth opens up and a tongue of fire licks Crowley before he can protest. It feels warm and coarse, not unlike a lion's tongue, and it sends frissions of much-needed heat and colour through his body.

He lets the blankets drop a bit more and says, tersely, “Thanks.”

Aziraphale makes a sound, a wisp of a long-forgotten song from before Creation. The brown twine wrapping his scrolls together goes slightly slack.

Most angels are white, with occasional flecks of dull brown or tan, their ever-chaste sign of purity and devotion to Her Eternal Grace.

Aziraphale is currently suffused with shades of light pink, drifting darker and darker to crimson at the curls of his scrolls. His feathers are brilliant colours, each one its own rainbow, stretching across the vibrant red hues of his soul; some feathers are pulled into an amalgamation of wings and others discretely spread like scattered leaves.

Crowley blinks and tries to find the focal point. Aziraphale's ice pack of a form groans at being viewed, but drifts obediently, the protective twine untangling further still until — _there_.

In the centre of it all, Aziraphale is still technically _man-shaped_ , but blazing light shines from his chest and his form is soft around the edges, like a lens flare. His human face is offset into absurdism by the fact that he now has sixteen eyes instead of the regular two and no nose to speak of. His mouth is half-way sewn with a thick cord, slackened and dull with age to a pale yellow.

The harsh ringing of bells has ceased, and now there just remains a subtle hint of chimes as if beneath several layers of paper. The tail in Crowley's lap shivers and relaxes; the lion's fire-tongue poking out between golden fangs in a soft orange glow.

Aziraphale is speaking from a mouth located somewhere in the folds of parchment — perhaps speaking is inaccurate. He's crooning softly, as thousands of eyes blink irregularly and fix on the demon in the middle of all this divinity. It's a soothing babble of noises, not quite in any one language, dancing through Akkadian, Hebrew, Mandarin, and there—in English, he moans, _lovelovelove_ , before it gets swept up into Kaurna, Latin, then Elamite.

“Well,” Crowley says, hearing the windows groan under the torrent of hail, and feeling like a second orgasm might be a lost cause at this point, “Holy, holy, holy, the Word of the fucking Lord.”

The crooning doesn't waver, but Aziraphale's pink hue drains to a colourless, translucent emptiness.

“Sorry,” Crowley mutters, regretful even without the instant feedback of emotions. “May I?” He touches the closest bit of Aziraphale, that lion’s tail, and Aziraphale purrs, blooming gold and letting himself be raised for inspection.

There is a slow trickle of neatly printed words spilling down his parchment of a tail, iridescent ink glowing and reading:

_‘...and again did GOD say unto Israfil bind Crowley hand and hand…’_

“I told you to stop feeling guilty about that,” Crowley remarks and continues:

_‘...to the headboard and cast him into the desert, and long for him deeply, tell him you want more, place him there in darkness under jagged rocks, let him rest there in your heart forever, and in the day of great judgment you two shall be found…’_

Crowley skips a little further down, to where the page is cracked and dry and still touched with frost:

  


_‘...ohdearohdearo̻h͓̯̦̘̘d̙̝̼̳e̕a̵̖͕̲͉̜r̘̟̗̣͈͜, ş̗̞̺͍̯̰̝̭͢͡o̢͍͙̰̫̼̙̰̕m̷̝̮̳̘̜̖͠e̱͈̱͎͍͝t͔̯̬̣̬̺̮͚h̯͙͚̮̜̜̤͘͡i̷͕̤̺͍̰̪̳͍̫͘n͎͕͔͙͕͟͟͠g̦̱̥̱̞̲ ̜̰̩͙̲s̩̣̟̲̫̬̺͝e̦̮͉͔e̴̤̥̪̙̻͘m͏̹͙̫͖̭̞s̶͓̥̦̟͓̫͘͟ t̛̕҉̸̪̜͈̳̮̼ơ̡̛͏̩̰̺̳̟ ̖̹̫̬̮̞͘͠͝b̠̲̦̞͈͞ȩ̫̰̦͘ ̨̛̺̱͎̼͙͎͠͠ͅt̨̢̛͔̪̫̩̠͉̭̗͉̰͓̱͚͈̯̤̱͈h̷̶̢̠̺͉̗̤̯̤̟͈̳͕̝̰͓̪͚͈͟e̶͟҉̘̱̦̳̺͙͙͍̥͙̖̥̱͍̼ ̵̧͉̲̱̟̺͇̦̹̰̜̲̳͓̝̲͍m͞͏̤̜͖͙̩ą̴̷͕͇͓̞͚̥̙̩̼͚͎̙̲t̵̡͙̫͖͙͙̮͖͍̙͉̲̺̬͖̼̭͚̘͜͢͠ͅt̙͉͎͙̩̺͓̘̳̹̟͕̪̘̪͇̟͢͜ͅe̵̷̮͕̯̪͚r̨̢̛҉̴̳͍̼̪̻̥̤͈̯̘̥̳,ī͑̿̊̄ͩ̓ͭͥ͊̔̂ͫ͏̸̫̻͉͚ ̧͖̱̬̹̙̖̹̲̹͖̦̥͓̞͇̭͔̺̹ͣ̐͆̀̚͡f̧͑͒̄̿̃ͯ̇́͒̓ͫ̕҉̶͙̞̯̺̲̩̖̳̦eͣ̽͆ͤ̔͂̅ͨ̈̉ͦͪ̄̑̔͂͐҉̛͚̖͕̲̪͇̯͢͡ͅe͒ͫ̿̀̉͆̉͌͌ͥͥ̿̄͑̚͡͏̡̻̜̘͎͔̟̼̯͟ļ̴̰̖̝̪̥̰͆ͯ͐ͬͧ͆͂͢ͅ ͂̔̉͐ͬͯ͑҉͚̩͔̻̭ć̶̨̬̼̩̺̦̭̦̺̟͚̼̦̮̫̦̞͆ͧ͊̃͊̇ͤ͞ͅoͧ̋̐ͮ͛̓ͧͪ͗ͤ͏̴̧͏̶̠̥̜̜̹̳̻͔̖̤̻̪̱̺̖͇͉l̸̛̪̥̬̟̮̱͑͗́̆͌̎̃̾͊͂̐͛ͬͯ̆͛ͪ͟͝ḍ͇͇̜͇̘͖̅͋͊ͩ͠͝͠...’_

  


The broken up text continues for several lines, going darker and then brighter. He skips again, to the freshly written bottom line:

_‘...this is quite embarrassing it feels like you're reading’_

“... your diary?” Crowley finishes.

Aziraphale turns a light pink again, rustling and murmuring beneath dry expanses.

“Angel.” Crowley starts to sigh, before closing his mouth with a snap of teeth. He tries to think of what to even say as Aziraphale’s entire soul settles quietly around him, close almost enough to touch, but holding back with deliberate caution. Crowley decides abruptly: “What do you want?”

The room shudders in time with Aziraphale as his form sloughs off into various segments. A pink appendage with six eyes and two mouths cracks off him like brittle granite, soon followed by two more, and they crowd around Crowley with polite intent. Still, they don’t touch him. Not even accidentally.

 _What do I have to do to get properly fucked around here?_ he thinks, feeling more than borderline demonic.

Perhaps the BDSM had been a bad idea, in retrospect, but what were bad memories for if you weren’t going to use them as fodder for kink? Absolutely nothing but wastes of opportunity. And now Aziraphale’s gone full eldritch on him and wants to _give him a hug_. This is a cosmic joke. He wants to fuck his way through pain, not have a good cry about it.

“A _hug_?” he says, aware of the thin, cracked quality his voice has taken. He deliberately tamps down on growing mania. “You—alright. Hug away.”

No sooner is the consent out of his mouth than the three pink strands are wrapped around him, gently negotiating under the last bit of blanket around his body and sliding under his back to meet again at his chest. Aziraphale lifts him too easily off the bed, not bringing him closer, just higher. The angel hesitates for a moment before other strands emerge, curious and cautious, and more, and more, until Crowley feels like a pin tied by too many ribbons, a gentle pressure enveloping his entire body.

Aziraphale should win an award for cuddliest Eldritch entity. That award doesn't exist, but that's nothing a well-placed miracle/temptation can't achieve.

As ribbons slide over Crowley, a few eyes blinking up from strands turning brighter and brighter red, Aziraphale's crooning hitches painfully. The noise redoubles in pitch, but remains at a soft, subsonic hum of volume.

And then the tip of his tail almost takes Crowley’s eye out as it extends before his vision again.

 _‘A hug_ ,’ is being written on the scroll in fastidiously tidy copperplate and adhering abruptly to painstakingly correct grammar conventions as opposed to the literal string-of-consciousness it had been before: ‘ _is very lovely but I had been considering_ …’

Crowley had thought it impossible to utilise ellipses in one’s very soul, and he’s begrudgingly impressed by that. But he will be damned — well, twice damned — well, thrice, if you count being fired from Hell as further damnation — at any rate, he will be buggered if he’s going to let Aziraphale _trail-off meaningfully_ for the millionth time in half a dozen millennia.

“Considering what?”

_‘My dear chap…’_

“What?” he challenges again, feeling not at all in the mood for any of this.

Aziraphale flares a dark scarlet and his form crackles with lightning. It feels like he’s being hugged by several live wires, and Crowley yelps in spite of himself.

 _'SEX,’_ the parchment curls like smoke, char blackened, then it resettles into a soft rose colour with a dissatisfied rustle, electricity dispersing, and continues: ‘ _I say, you are really quite beastly sometimes, Crowley, you knew exactly what I meant.’_

Still feeling pretty charred himself, Crowley says coldly, “There’s a kettle I would love for you to meet one day.”

His tongue flickers out to taste the threat of the ribbons, and he feels instantly five times an idiot for growing hard. But Aziraphale smells… Aziraphale-y. Musky old books, and Darjeeling, and the faint hint of Chanel even though the angel can barely smell on a good day.

There is, also, the smell of ozone and burning flesh, but it hardly dampens his erection.

 _‘What? Oh, pot, kettle, yes, very droll.’_ The script pauses, then adds slowly: ‘ _You could change too, you know.’_

As if he hasn’t been fighting that grotesque urge the entire time Aziraphale has been spilt, overstretched, in this too tight bedroom.

“Prefer not to,” Crowley says flatly. “Are you going to change back?”

 _‘Well…’_ The script makes a few abortive scribbles of ‘ _I was_ — _perhaps_ — _you know_ —’ then settles neatly on:

_‘I hadn’t thought to just at this moment, no.’_

“Right,” says Crowley. “That’s sort of a problem.”

 _‘Oh? I mean the hail, certainly, I’ll grant you_ —’

“What exactly are you going to fuck me with?”

 _‘Ah. My dear Crowley.’_ The parchment is flush purple with smugness. It's so Aziraphale it hurts. Actually, Crowley concedes, maybe the sudden pain is from the ribbons that have suddenly gone tight around him. ‘ _No need for any concern on that front.’_

Crowley comes to several, rapid conclusions, namely that:

  1. He is the sort of person who, when hearing someone say, “don’t worry about it,” instantly begins to worry about whatever “it” is;
  2. What he has taken to be _ribbons_ are actually more like _tentacles_ ;
  3. Aziraphale might be more of a bastard than he is usually given credit for; and,
  4. Crowley might be so aroused by all the above that the logistics of it start to blur into trivialities.



Anxious adrenaline is a familiar bed-fellow of desire, after all. Still, in the spirit of it, he might like to protest a _bit_.

“Sounds good,” he says quickly instead. A slender tentacle, leather-bound and dripping golden-brown with tannin, is circling him with predatory curiosity. He opens his mouth to say something, and forgets instantly whatever useless garbage his brain wanted to spill as the tentacle nudges at his lower lip. He waits for it to push in, but it hesitates.

The tail still dangles at eye height:

‘ _Is this alright?_ ’ the words form tentatively on the page. ‘ _I don’t want to hurt you.’_

So much for that third conclusion.

Instead of answering, Crowley dips his tongue onto the tip of the tentacle, tasting and smelling the rich, dry essence of Aziraphale.

The angel turns bright red. His form cracks and shudders and lets out a noise close to the thin wail of a poorly tuned violin.

It’s a bit like the way his fingers tasted while they were in Crowley’s mouth earlier, just so much more. Aziraphale tastes like he’s just eaten a scone piled high with cream and jam, or white chocolate, milky and hitting right on the top palate and almost dizzyingly, sickeningly sweet. After that, though, it matures into the dusty back-jacket of an old book, a hint of bitter, tangy copper, sharp as a blade to the throat.

The danger is slightly offset by the way that the angel is yowling like a cat in heat. Despite the urgent sounds, he is unmoving, accepting ministrations gratefully without pushing for anything further.

Crowley pulls his tongue back for a moment to enjoy the tastes rippling through his secondary palate. His favourite form has a few perks ahead of being a snake; the bevvy of delicate flavours, for one, and for two—

The air chokes from his lungs as the tentacle presses into his mouth. It had looked narrow, but his mouth stretches and stretches until his jaw begins to literally unhinge. The tentacle— _Aziraphale_ —thrusts sluggishly, jerkily down further—Crowley’s totally overwhelmed by the essence of the divine gagging his throat, the cold burn, the distillation of cheese, swords, tea, smoked leather, every damn meal Aziraphale has ever eaten through every fucking century, year, month, day they had lingered on this mad planet, right back to the Garden of Eden.

 _Pomegranate_ , Crowley thinks dimly. _Didn’t realise they had that back then._

The gentle pressure of the hug has settled into a heavy weight that pins him mid-air like an insect on a board. Not requiring oxygen is definitely an advantage here, with his throat filled and his chest encircled by tight bonds. He feels safe, snugly ensconced in an angel, and reflects bitterly that _this_ should not be making him hard.

Maybe it's the protective shell of humanity, but when Aziraphale freezes, his shivery tentacles pulling tight and stiff, the ensuing blood of the covenant doesn't melt Crowley into a pile of formless goo. But it does sting, like scalding, oversteeped English Breakfast pouring into him. He can never drink that blend of tea again, not after this.

The ribbons slithering around his abdomen regain mobility first, curling around his cock. He tries to jerk, but can't. Can't while he's surrounded on all sides by this writhing, pink mess of divinity.

The tentacle in his mouth slips out. He could ask Aziraphale to stop, to change back, to not rail him absolutely senseless, until he can't think anymore, until he's totally overcome with the fierce, ugly heat blooming throughout him but _especially_ in his groin.

But he doesn't.

There’s a crack of heat, of terrible, terrible heat in the core of his heart that he clamps down on, feeling queasy with lust and distress and there's another _crack!_ from far away, from somewhere totally outside of Aziraphale, as the window bursts under the scream of hail.

“Don't stop, don't stop, please, please, Aziraphale—”

His name is spilled across Aziraphale's papery body, _Crowley_ running again and again in blotchy ink splatters, like frantic code tumbling from fingers, a desperate love note, _Crowley_. He is the object of obsession, of desire, for this ineffable, beautiful angelic being, who has four heads and no words and comprises so much, more than any language can contain.

The force that presses into him is sudden and insistent and terrifying—he's not even aware if Aziraphale is inside of him literally or metaphorically or if that even matters anymore, if reality is as important as people always think it must be.

Aziraphale is _howling_ , and it’s not so much like a single wolf crying out for a pack, but a thousand wolves, piercing, resonant and terrible.

“Keep going, please, keep—” _going, keep ruining me, fuck me harder, fill me further._

Is that his voice? Growling, hissing, wrought with fire and sulphur, he can't contain any of it anymore—no, he has to contain it, he doesn't want to come undone, his damn plants will catch fire for one, he can't change, he can't come undone like that, not here, not—

Aziraphale gives a thin, high note that reverberates through his form, rippling out into horrifying warbling screams.

And he is filled with roaring, pulsing, spurts of cold fire, ichor that sloughs off like honey from a circular dripper, filling him to the brim and reversing the awful tension in the core of lava inside of him, sticking him together like clay shards, molten gold pouring into the cracks, stopping him from crumbling into shuddering motes of ash.

This is the worst idea they've ever had, and they raised the wrong fucking Antichrist for eleven years. This is also the _best_ idea they've ever had. How can it be terrible when his atoms are humming with stolen divinity that he hasn't tasted since—

Light blooms in his veins, tears through his organs, pulling with thousands of fractal slivers of sharp energy and then darkness rips through his vision, his senses, his brain, and he is falling again.

* * *

When Crowley’s vision returns, and his synapses start sluggishly firing again, he finds Aziraphale curled up next to him on a bed that has seen better days. He’s got two eyes, a nose, and that stupid, stereotypical cupid’s bow mouth. Normal, white bread, middle-aged antique bookseller.

Crowley could weep with gratitude, if his eyes felt like they hadn't burst open and then been hastily resewn into his skull.

“Oo,” Aziraphale grumbles, naked and trembling, “I’m dreadfully cold.”

“Ngk,” says Crowley, his frontal lobe not fully restored to working capacity. Aziraphale gives him a fond look and a beaming smile.

“A little unorthodox, I’ll grant you,” he says, preening with smug self-satisfaction, “but sometimes the old ways are the best.”

Crowley can hear the start-up music of his brain begin, stall at the third note, and then crash to a blue-screen again, as Aziraphale continues.

“You were absolutely delightful, my dear, thank you for indulging me. I feel positively refreshed. Aglow, even.”

Crowley wonders briefly if he might be dying. The thought, large and worrisome as it is, physically hurts to think about. No. Too much softness for death. Not enough being screamed at by the stationary department. Just a bubbly, post-coital angel to contend with.

“I trust you enjoyed yourself as well?” Aziraphale prompts, nudging him with a cold nose.

“Ngk,” seems to be the most appropriate response.

“You're warm,” the angel notes a half second before he burrows his hypothermic flesh into skin almost radiant with heat. Aziraphale sighs in a grateful heave, breath puffy in the uncertain, paradoxically cold and hot air.

The coolness is a balm to Crowley's restless flesh. Here still, human still, beginning to come down from the most incredibly fucked orgasm he's ever had. They should never do that again.

“We should do that again sometime,” the angel murmurs against his ear.

“Mmm,” he replies. They will definitely do that again.

“But,” Aziraphale spares a glance at the room, covered in half-evaporated water and shards of glass, “perhaps somewhere more… suitable, next time, my dear.”

* * *

It takes them hours to move.

Aziraphale, still cold with starlight, decides to christen the shower. He hears a half-strangled scream and then “ _Aziraphale!_ ” from outside and Crowley bursts into the bathroom.

“My _plantsss_ ,” he hisses, holding up a cut vine big enough to strangle a man and digest him, “what did you do to _my plantsss_?”

The angel has grace enough to flush, embarrassed. Or maybe it's the 50°C water causing the red hue.

“Oh dear,” he replies. “And the hail?”

“It’sss on the _newsss_!”

“Oh dear,” he says, again. But the shower is so very hot and he is so very cold. “Can it not wait?”

Crowley wavers between indignant fury about the minor rebellion his plants are engaged in and bone-deep, sticky exhaustion. There are two roads, here. The upright, moral path and the lazy, immoral path. They should really get to work. And never, ever do this again, not in the middle of bloody Mayfair.

“Care to join me?” Aziraphale offers, monopolising the indecision.

Hell. He is a demon, after all.

“Clean-up later,” Crowley agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> "Flesh to mix with Flesh, or Soul with Soul" shamelessly ripped from Paradise Lost, Milton, the total quote being about angels having sex:
> 
> "Easier than air with air, if Spirits embrace,  
> Total they mix, union of pure with pure  
> Desiring, nor restrained conveyance need,  
> As flesh to mix with flesh, or soul with soul."
> 
> That's very gay, Milton.
> 
> The reference to the Bible is because I headcanon Aziraphale as Israfil aka Raphael and Crowley as Azazel aka "bringer of sin to humanity" and they had a fun little BDSM romp in the Book of Enoch chapter 10 verses 4–7:
> 
>  _And again the Lord said to Raphael: 'Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dudael, and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light. And on the day of the great judgement, he shall be cast into the fire._  
>    
> And what good is trauma if not as fodder for kink?
> 
> Let me know if you'd like a sequel/follow-up with a description of Crowley as an eldritch tentacle beast.


End file.
